 Well hello again, this is Jim Hogue, and I think we'll call this part two of the visionary future for Vermont, but we will extend it into the world, because our guest today is John Root, who has been studying monetary reform for at least as long as I have. And I am going to ask John to start with the psychology, if you will, of the way people think about money and some of the misconceptions that people have about money, and how we can go to the root problem and try to turn things around. That has happened periodically over the course of history, and the threat of the good example has been quashed very thoroughly, and the most important being the currency act during the colonial period. But John will talk about how the human mind has incorporated the current paradigm and what we can do about that, and after that, for the next 25 minutes, we will be talking about alternatives that have popped up, some of which are frustrating the powers that be, and some of which have resulted in, many of which have resulted in wars and assassinations. If you look at Perkins' book, The Confessions of an Economic Hitman, you will see the cold hard facts of what happens when people try to, when leaders try to step out of the current paradigm. So there are an awful lot of problems, huge problems, wars, for example, that have been thought necessary because certain countries do not toe the line with the current paradigm. But let's go back to the psychology of this. John Root, welcome, and off you go. Okay, so the interesting thing is that we all have this experience that money is power. The money you have, the more power you have. And we look at this whole situation that we're in with politics and money as speech and corporations being able to spend as much money as they want to influence the political situation. So there is a paradigm that we're living in that says you want the money. And you want the money because you think that the money is valuable in itself. In other words, you want the money. It's not valuable in itself. You can't do anything with the money except spend it. Well, you can earn it and save it and invest it and all of that, but it's the goods and services that are actually valuable. So it isn't that we want to get money out of politics. It's recognizing that money is politics. Politics is all about what to issue money for and what to allocate money for and what to promote. So the problem isn't that their money is influencing politics. It's the other way around. It's who's deciding. So in order to have an experience of the possibility of genuine reform, of genuinely creating an economy and a society based on the better world that we all know in our hearts is possible, is simply a matter of a different understanding of money. It's who decides. So money and the difficulty that we're in is that we only have the concepts, generally speaking, we only have the concepts that come to us from the culture in order to understand what's going on. So the culture says we have to get big money out of politics. So we waste a lot of time and energy trying to get big money out of politics. Well guess what? You can't get big money out of politics because money is politics, right? See we need different concepts and the reality is this. You always, always, always have a choice. When you're confronted with something that's coming to you from your background, from your childhood, from your education, from the media, you always have the choice to stop and ask yourself what concept do I want to use to understand this that would actually bring me joy, that I would be fulfilled, that I would experience real happiness in having that concept. So who should be deciding what to issue money for, how to manage the circulation so that there's no bubbles and no busts, no inflation, no recessions, right? Managing the money supply, that's a very simple thing. There are three things. There's the capital stock, the amount of money that's out there in circulation. There's the velocity with which it circulates. How many transactions each dollar of the capital stock, of the money stock, is affecting trade. So before it disappears somewhere or goes into a savings account, how many times, how many, what's the multiplier of the circulation, right? And then the savings rate, how much is sitting somewhere not being spent? So you keep those three things in balance. If the circulation slows, everybody went on vacation or something or they slept late and the circulation slows, you might have to increase the capital stock in order for the money to continue to properly represent the things that are actually valuable. So money has those characteristics. It has the characteristic of being a measure of value. We all know what a dollar's worth and we're all making decisions about what to spend our money on based on what we did in order to have the money and what the value of what we're buying is to us. That's what the unit of value does for us. And we have to use, we have to use. The courts will not support you if you try to use something else, right? You have to use the dollar. Or bank credit is what it really is, but we can talk about that later. You have to use the means of exchange that the sovereign, the congress or the Federal Reserve or whatever it is, or the king or whatever has said you have to use. So money is really a matter of law. Those two things are really important. Money is the primary tool that whoever is the actual sovereign is using to create the conditions in which we all live. What is the money being issued for? So if you use the idea that the money is never valuable in itself, I don't care if we're using gold coins, the money is never valuable in itself. In order for gold to serve as money, its value as money has to be set by law higher than its value as gold. Same for silver, same for anything else. Back in the 80s, the copper in the pennies was worth more than a penny. So what did people do? They took them to the metal recycler and they sold them for two cents on the penny. So they took the copper out of the pennies so that they wouldn't be worth more than a penny. I mean, this is absolutely true. And that's something the government does rather than the banks, by the way, because it's not important. Yeah, well, we'll get to all that. The point is that money is always a matter of law. It's always the sovereign that is establishing what the money is. There's a concept which will free you from this idea that you want the money. You never want the money. You want the money. You want the power the money gives you to create the life that you want. That's what you want. You want the power. What is the power? It's political. It's the political power. It's the way the system empowers or doesn't, right? So if you imagine that we were sitting together in our communities, in our wards, in our neighborhoods, talking about what we should issue money for, everything would change. Everything would change. And we would be... Everything. We would be sovereign. Yes, we would become the sovereign. We would be the sovereign. Is that possible? Well, I don't know. We haven't tried it recently. We have tried it in the past. It has happened. Yeah. With great positive effect. Right. So the really important thing is do not accept the ready-made concept that comes to you from the culture. If you want to create the better world, and I mean the better world, that you know in your heart is possible. I've conducted over many years in many different groups, what I call imagining community. And we just sit there and we talk about what it is that we imagine could be, given who I am. That's the most important thing. I do not want to hear what you think other people would do. I only want to hear what you would do. So let's imagine that because we were sitting together in a circle, talking about how we would like the world to be with the power to fund it, because we could issue the money for it. It turns out that the commonality in the vision that people have of what social justice is, is unbelievably strongly common. We all know what social justice is. We all know that what we really want is for everyone. I mean everyone, not just smart people, not just privileged people. We want everyone to have what they need in order to live out the life purpose, the transcendent purpose that they feel called to serve. And what's really interesting is you get two things. People say, I know exactly what it is that I want to do. What would make me happy is really being able to. And then they tell you what it is that I love building. I'm an artist. I want to grow the best food. I love chemical processes. I love computers. I mean just think, most of the major software that's running the world was created voluntarily by programmers because they love to do it. It's called open source, like open office or Linux, Linux, major operating system, created by volunteers. Why? Because they love doing it and they know the extent to which it benefits everyone. So I'm talking to people, we're going around the circle, we're getting them to say what really motivates them, what they would really like to do. And then every once in a while you get somebody, I haven't got a clue. And everybody wants to help them figure it out. Hey, this is human nature. We all know what social justice is. We all know the better world that lives in us as an ideal. If we could get those. If we all share those ideals, if we can get to them. And the way that you get to them is you stop worrying about all the stuff that the popular culture tells you about human nature. It isn't true. Well, it's not true of me. It's not true of you. It's not true of you, or you, or you, or you. So who is it true of? Well, okay, so you may not have any of the concepts that you need in order to see what it is that you could really do. Here's the thought experiment that makes the difference. What if we didn't issue the money for production, right? What if we issued the money for consumption? What if we made sure that everybody had the money that they need to live, right? Here's the concept. Most people will tell you, oh, you can't issue money for consumption. You have to issue money for production. Well, but we do that. I mean, we have a lot of disabled people who get a check every month. They get a check every month, right? Okay, so let's issue the money so that everybody has the money they need to buy the things they need to live. If we were to do that, then everyone would be at liberty to pursue happiness. So if governments are instituted among men to secure our inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then in order to secure our life, we would need to give everyone a dividend income. What would the dividend income be based on? It would be based on the overall surplus that the economy generates. What do you mean the economy generates a surplus? Well, yeah, every time you buy something, right, the shop, if you buy it at the price that the shop is advertising it for, it's going to be profitable for them, right? And you wouldn't buy it if you weren't going to be better off, if it weren't profitable for you. Every transaction by its nature as a result of human nature creates a surplus. You bet it does. I'm better off, the store is better off. With every transaction that takes place in the course of a week, we should all be increasingly better off. Well, let's distribute the surplus as a dividend income for everyone so that there is liberty to provide all the things that the community needs. And then we're in a position where everything that happens is a result of a healthy human judgment. What's the most important thing to do to make you feel happy? The most important thing is to do something that you see the community recognizes as valuable. There isn't anything else. There isn't anything else that actually makes you happy. It's a process. It's a process of fulfilling the calling, what the spirit calls you to do, however you understand spirit. Well, that's Plato as we discussed last time. Yeah, right. What is happiness? Happiness is feeling fulfilled. Doing the right thing. What is the right thing? Something that you are capable of doing and doing in the way that you want to do it that the community recognizes. One monkey wrench to this is that what you think is beneficial your neighbor might think is harmful. But that's a detail that is... OK, so I'm trying to figure out what it is that I want to dedicate my life to. Right? And I have this particular idea. And we actually get to because we have a dividend income and we're not running off in the morning to work and coming home in the evening to work. We're working whenever it is that it makes sense to be working. I want to know what everybody thinks. Now, if somebody thinks that something that I want to do is detrimental and I'm sure that it isn't, don't you think that I would be able to get them to be willing to try it? Good point. Do it this way. Do it this much for this. And let's evaluate it. Right? Let's evaluate whether the unintended consequence that you were worried about is actually happening. All of a sudden, we're in an entirely different paradigm. We're actually listening to each other. We're listening to each other. And we're supporting each other. And the last thing that I want to do is something that's going to harm somebody else. I don't want to do it. Well, yes, I do. I mean, there are lots of things that I want to do. But those are impulses that I'm not proud of. Those are things, and this is true for all of us. They're things that I may even need help to get. I mean, I'm sure Brett Kavanaugh is very unhappy about having adopted fraternity culture back then and gotten himself into that sort of mess. I'm sure he regrets it. I'm sure he's been very disciplined ever since, since high school, since college, and fraternity days, not to give in to those impulses. If we're supporting each other to be the best that we can be, and if we're actually willing to experiment with adopting the nurturing ideas, let's say that we said that actually what we need is to listen to the mothers. What we need to do is simply listen to what the mothers want for their children, for their families, for their husbands, for us. What do you want for us, mother? Everything would change. Now, imagine that we have the power, because we're sovereign, to issue the money for it and to regulate the money supply so that the money always represents the goods and services accurately so that it doesn't inflate, doesn't deflate. It took a really long time to get a really accurate watch, and we're actually only now, only in the past 25 years or so, in a position to totally regulate the money supply because we don't use cash anymore. It's all digital. We know exactly what's going on. We know whether there's enough or too little money, and that's what the banking system does. They blow up the economy. They blow up the housing market, and then they crash it. So what's the percentage of money that's digital versus the money that's cash, like 95% digital or something? No, it's more. I think it's something like 97% digital. And cash is very little. So without going, one of the things that's really important is to know that what I'm talking about is not pie in the sky. We haven't experienced it in America for a really long time. One of the interesting things is that it's really clear, even from the way that history is taught now, that the American Revolution was really important. The American Revolution was a real, genuine world event. And the reason that it was a real, genuine world event was that it was the first time, although you can go back to Greece and the Greek Republic, and you can go back to the Roman Republic and see the beginnings of it. But that's a long, long time ago. Well, there's Magna Carta. There were a few bleeps. Yeah, then there's the Magna Carta. But here you have a whole nation, not objecting or trying to creating a shift in the sovereignty from the king to the people. That's what the American Revolution was about. The colonists said, hey, the king has done nothing but a process. The king has not been creating the conditions in which we're all thriving. We created the conditions in which we're all thriving. So let's overthrow the king. Now, the interesting thing that the history books do not tell you is that the reason the colonists had that experience was that they issued their own money. They issued colonial scrap. Each of the colonies did it a little bit differently, but it all goes back to Benjamin Franklin and an experience that he had in the Iroquois nation. The Iroquois did not have money. They had Wampum. And what is Wampum? Wampum is the way that you remember. It's a mnemonic. It's the way that you remember the significant events that happen in the course of the year. So Benjamin Franklin is at a pow-wow at a meeting of the Iroquois nation. And he knows that they've enjoyed 1,000 years of peace and that they have separation of powers. And there are all these fascinating things about the way that the Iroquois nation governs itself that was very influential in the development of the American Constitution. But he has this experience that the popular culture into the history books do not tell you. And that was that the chief of the Iroquois nation was responsible for making sure that the chiefs of the tribes and the chiefs of the clans all had enough Wampum to commemorate all of the significant events that happened in the course of the year. And Benjamin Franklin goes, oh my god, of course, of course. There always has to be enough money for all the transactions that the people want to make. And there's never enough gold and silver for all the transactions that people want to make. We need paper money. So he writes a little booklet, a little essay that he prints and distributes. And it's called The Utility and Necessity of a Paper Currency. And all the colonies adopt a paper script. And you can Google it. Yeah, paper colonial script. From 1730 through 1760, there was no shortage of money in the colonies. Go look at colonial America. It was all built, 1730 to 1760. And the growth was? The American economy rivaled the English economy. Who did that? Well, no shortage of money. If you wanted to do something, if you wanted to do a mill or you wanted to build a bridger, you wanted to improve the road, or you wanted to, whatever it was, the mutual insurance, the fire company, whatever it was, you went to the legislature. And they not only gave you the money, they gave you the charter. In Pennsylvania, which had the most successful system, in other words, the least blips, the least inflation, the least, they issued the money at 5% interest. For however long, it made sense to issue it for. There were no taxes. All the money was the surplus in the form of the interest that they paid back to the legislature, that the mill, or the lumberyard, or the building company. And speaking of paradigms, listeners should know that your taxes, most of them, in fact, if you really look at it, just about 100% of your taxes go right to the banks because the banks created the money at interest and at compound interest. And that's what your money is paying for. Instead of going back into the community, sort of like North Dakota. As a dividend income. Yes. Why shouldn't we all have a dividend income? Let's issue the money so that we all have what we need to live. Hey, then nobody would do it. No, that's not true. What is the most important thing to do? We love doing things. We love building things. We love growing things. We love manufacturing. We love designing things. We love, I mean, hell, we would have an amazingly abundant economy. And guess how much time we would have to spend doing those sorts of things? Hours in the week, not days in the week. Why? Because we're about to be all jobless because of artificial intelligence and robots. I mean, I would love to train the robot to do what it is that I need it to do. And now if I had the capital to do that and I was producing goods and services that people valued, boom, we would have a booming economy and we could spend most of our time enjoying ourselves, celebrating life, having the potlucks, visiting all the places to see all the wonderful things that people are doing. I mean, we would have museums. We would have cultural centers. We would, everybody would be involved in each other's education. We'd all be, I mean, we'd be jumping out of bed every morning, rare and to go. And what do you need in order to understand this? You just need to remember one thing. You can issue money for consumption. Every transaction creates a surplus. That's human nature. We could harness the surplus from the economy to give everyone what they need in order to live so that they are at liberty to pursue the transcendent purpose they feel called to serve autonomously with the opportunity for continuing education. And why don't we have that now because the banks have historically had enough power to shut it down? Well, right. That's why we think we should get money out of politics. No, money is politics. So, we didn't get to actually list the alternatives that have been successful for a few hundred years and now we're out of time. However, you get the idea that if the paradigm shifts, the alternatives become actually doable and even more obvious to us. That we can do it outside. We can do what we need to do outside of the banking system because then we become the sovereigns. So, thank you very much, John Root, for joining the guest on the House of Poo Corner. And what we will do is make sure that the Public Banking Institute gets a hold of this particular interview because it's germane to what we do at the Public Banking Institute. And we'll get it all out there. So, thanks a lot. House of Poo Corner is the website with House of Poo Corner with Jim Ho. Thank you.